Posts Tagged ‘World’s Ugliest Woman’

I saw this testimony and watched it with tears in my eyes. It’s a story of the ugliest kind of cruelty and the response of a beautiful spirit whose soul had been transformed by Christ:

Is this world all there is? Is how you look, or how much money you have, or how successful you are, all that matters? Or is there something MORE?

What makes me matter? What gives me dignity and value?

If you’re wondering, if you’ve ever wondered, then look to the example of Lizzie Velasquez.

I have had on a few occasions the opportunity to talk to – in a counseling, mentoring relationship – some stunningly beautiful girls and young women. And have been astonished at how many times I have seen that beauty – which is a GIFT and a BLESSING – get turned into a burden and a curse. One of the reasons is internal as these young women struggle to find an identity that goes beyond how they look. And one of the reasons that tends to happen is external because these women can ALWAYS find somebody who will cater to their drama that otherwise would have been unacceptable.

In short, what I have discovered is that when everybody else treats you different because of the way you look, it’s all to easy for you to start thinking and treating yourself differently because of the way you look. But that path leads to neurosis. And beauty becomes burden.

I imagine it’s very difficult for most people to feel sorry for someone who thinks he or she has it hard because of all his or her beauty. In the same way it is bizarre to visualize a billionaire sitting next to a homeless person telling him, “You have no idea how awful it is to have everything.”

The funny thing, thinking about that incredibly beautiful woman describing her pain, is that Lizzie Velasquez would probably give that woman more genuine empathy and more compassion than anyone that beautiful woman had ever talked to.

The most wonderful part of this story is when Lizzie explains how she not only comes to realize why a loving God made her the way He did, but even is able to joyfully accept God’s destiny for her.

I hope you watch this. I hope it makes you cry the way it made me cry.